Good Girl Gone Bad

Foxymoron

Hello Everyone!

Please bear with me if I end up sounding like just another debt laden person, am new to the forums and am hoping to find lots of useful info here

So up until recently I have always been debt free. My overdraft has only ever been £100 (still is actually) and have had good quality of life.

Unfortunately my partner of 10 years and I seperated at the beginning of last year and I have been slowly descending into debt ever since.
With having to raise a 2 year old, moving into a bare new house and trying to fund a car by myself it's all gone chaotic!
My debts are as follows....(I have written in totals left to pay)
£4300 credit card, HSBC
£4000 car loan payments
£800 carpet payment plan
£800 furniture payment plan

I have been unable to work due to illness for over 5 years and I receive benefits for this disability and for being a single parent.
I am however in a quandary as no one will look at me sideways for loan consolidation or credit cards (I have looked to switching to 0% balance transfer as I pay £110 a month and get £70 taken off in interest!)
So I have no help and no money.
Is there anything I can do to help my situation any?

I do have a new partner but at present we are not sharing financial burdens. He himself cannot get a loan although he has tried as he is currently paying a consolidation loan off. He has 2 bank accounts with large overdrafts and 2 credit cards which amount to about the same as my one. He has said he would be happy to try and work our problems out together so if that is a better avenue please feel free to advise on that also
He works full time in a publishing job he has been in for over 5 years.

I can see I'm on a slippery slope and it's all getting a bit much at the moment.
I am ashamed of the debt and wish I had tried to be little more careful in what I bought. It seemed to creep up out of nowhere.

One of the main problems I can see is that because I am on benefits my money comes in at different times of the month as they are paid in fortnightly and four weekly amounts. For this reason my ex-partner always had the direct debits while I paid for food and bills. Now money is coming out from my account when I don't have it and I am going over my overdraft and having to pay over £100 in bank charges nearly every month.

Anyway I would be so grateful if any of you had some sound advise for me.
Thanks in advance.

lilian1977

Hi

Welcome to the board. Great to hear you want to sort everything out.

Best place to start is here:
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Fill everything in and then post it up here. We can then make suggestions on how you can make some extra money or reduce your outgoings.

Good luck and well done for coming here for help xx

Lula-Hula

Hi & welcome,

Is your car financed through the motability scheme, could this be something that would help ie. sell your current car & get one through motability if not already ?

goodeys

Reclaim the bank charges. You can do it under the financial hardship ruling. I have just totted mine up and thought that it would be about £400 and it is over £900. Look at the link on this site for reclaiming bank charges on the bank charges forum.

Are you a Rhianna fan by any chance?!?

lilian1977

goodeys wrote: »

Are you a Rhianna fan by any chance?!?

Was going to ask the same - it's just prompted me to put the album on!

findingmyownway

Helloo

How bizarre - i have just posted a thread regarding my own similar situation. I have found the change of lifestyle after a break up very hard to manage. I think we are in the right place for help though!

goodeys

I know, I can't get the song out of my head now, looks like i'll have to pop it on too!

foxymoron_2

Thanks for the quick enquiries folks.

Ok I have no savings at all.

I cannot get my car on mobility as i am only eligible for the lower rate dla mobility part and you need the higher one to be able to fund a car as far as i am aware.

I filled out the statement of affairs thingy and it said my total income was £1020 and my outgoings are £970 which leave me with £50 a month surplus to cover expenses unaccounted for and repayments of debts. No wonder it's not working!

I looked into reclaiming charges about a year ago but they only amounted to about £200. Now they will be well over £1000. I know that it's still up in the air with the courts but I figured seeing as it's only about 2 years I have been victim to their charges (and not the 6 you can go back on) I would wait until it had been cleared in the courts. I am accumulating more every month.

Not a Rhianna fan especially. Is Good Girl Gone Bad a title of one of her songs? lol Not intentional! Sorry if I've done that horrible thing of getting a song stuck in your head :rotfl:

ghostmadlittlemiss

Post your SOA up here on the forum so we can see it. Then we'll be able to suggest ways that you can cut back. There's bound to be something you'll have missed. After that, trying looking at the 'Up your income' board for ways of bringing extra money in. Try this article too. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/protect/make-money There are people on here who've had debts just as high as yours and some even higher and cleared them or are in the process of doing so. We're all in the same boat so we won't judge you but we need some more details before we can help.
Kayleigh

Lula-Hula

Hi again,

Ok, so you cant do anything about the car.

I think you should check out this site www.whatsthecost.co.uk which round here is known as the 'snowball calculator'. The idea is that you enter the details of all your debts; amount owing, interest rates & minimum repayments required. It will then sort out the quickest & cheapest way for you to pay off your debts.

It usually works out that you pay the minimum amount only on the loweer interest rate debts & throw everything available at the highest interest rate debt.

another site which is very helpful & I fully recommend is the Credit Consumer Counselling Service one at www.cccs.co.uk you can fill in an online budget sheet & it give you a good idea as to what you should be paying toward your bills & how much you should have to live on. They offer free advice & are very popular here.

I hope this proves helpful to you & failing that if you were to post up all your income & outgoings on this thread then many helpful & excelllent 'budgeteers' will show you how you can cut down your outgoings. You'd be surpirsed what is no longer essential when trying to clear debts.

Best wishes, good luck & any further questions - just ask

lula

ps - Just another thought : could you ask the benefits agencies if your payments could all be done at the same time, they are usually willing to help with this if possible.

Sterile

Good Girl Gone Bad is one of her albums/songs. And it's spelt "Rihanna"!

Now that's out of the way just to add that you should definitely reclaim your charges. Your CC charges can be reclaimed straightaway - you should definitely do that.

Have you tried asking them to freeze the interest with one of the standard letters?

Certainly dont be ashamed of the debts, your debts are small in comparison to many peoples !